


Looking for the Thing We Lost

by Wreck



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Getting Together, M/M, Stiles Stilinski is Pushed Out of the Pack, Wild Hunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wreck/pseuds/Wreck
Summary: But the thing is that Stiles had already been forgotten by everyone.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 72
Kudos: 1672
Collections: Steter Secret Santa 2019





	Looking for the Thing We Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obsessedbutonline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessedbutonline/gifts).



> Happy Secret Santa to obsessedbutonline!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this, and sorry for waiting to the 11th hour to get this up for you. Hope it was worth the wait; I had such a great time writing it.
> 
> This has not been beta’d. Apologies in advance for any mistakes.

_I wonder how you looked the day you were erased_  
_To look down at your heart and watch it fade  
_

_Leave You Behind, Sleater-Kinney_

* * *

The night Stiles returns from the Wild Hunt, they have a party. He isn’t the only one who returned but it feels like the party is in his honor in some way. His dad hugs him so close he feels like a child again (and then the sheriff had slipped out and pretended not to notice the underaged drinking). Derek grips his shoulder for a moment before releasing him with a tentative smile. Scott’s hug bruises a rib. Lydia marches up and kisses him square on the mouth and makes him promise never to vanish like that again. There is dancing and music and it was everything that Stiles had ever wanted out of a high school party. 

But the thing is that Stiles had already been forgotten by everyone. 

When Stiles is remembered back into existence, he hoped that things would return to normal…well, a very specific definition of the word normal that encompasses Beacon Hills. But still. He figures it he’ll go back to balancing some sort of supernatural shenanigans with finishing up his senior year. 

And at first things do seem to return to normal. Those first few days, his dad takes as much time off work as he can. Scott, Lydia, Malia, and an assortment of the younger Pack members, keep showing up at his house. Even Derek and Chris Argent stop by (separately) to check in on him. 

But then, over the course of a week or so, slowly everyone fades back into the lives they had developed while Stiles was gone. The Pack has gotten so used to him not being part of their group that once the initial shock of having him back wares off, they seem to forget to remember he’s back. Stiles isn’t exactly sure how time moved in the Hunt, but months had passed while he was away, and well, it seems that everyone has more or less carried on with their lives without him. 

At first Stiles is a little relieved. After the long, empty silence of the train station, being around so many people again is overwhelming. So he figures the dialing back of attention is good. He can catch up on schoolwork, finally finish his college applications. But after a few days of zero contact from any of them, he realizes this isn’t an easing up; his friends have moved on. 

Stiles finds himself wandering around his house like a ghost, unable to concentrate on any one task. When he finally returns to school, his friends greet him in class like normal, but when the bell rings, they get up and moved as a unit into the halls and by the time Stiles grabs his bag and catches up, they are already gone. The last thing he wants is to be trailing after them like a lost puppy, so he takes to the library, and tries to double down on studying, but he can’t concentrate there either. 

The worst though is at home. His dad startles the first few times he comes home and finds Stiles sitting at the kitchen table, genuinely surprised to find another person in his home. And that breaks his heart more than anything else. 

And to make matters worse, he isn’t sleeping again. It’s a little bit like after the nogistune, except instead of worrying about losing time he can’t remember, he worries about being able to remember everything as he watches the rest of the world move on without him. Like he is trapped in amber, frozen in time as the rest of the world turns. He isn’t sure which scares him more.

But ultimately it’s that fear that brings him here, standing awkwardly on Peter’s doorstep, close to midnight, hesitating to knock. He almost laughs at himself—he knows that Peter would have heard the moment he pulled up and that the longer he takes to knock the weirder it will be, but the fact of the matter is that he doesn’t quite know where he stands with Peter, and it is sheer stubbornness that causes Stiles to wait this long to come see him. 

After a few minutes the door opens before Stiles ever works up the courage to knock. 

“How long were you planning on standing there?” Peter asks by way of greeting.

Stiles sighs. “I was probably going to knock. Eventually. Or leave. It was kinda a 50/50 split on what might have eventually happened.”

“Not when I can hear your car pull up. Maybe 80/20.”

Stiles just shrugs.

“Did you want to come in?” Peter asks, stepping back and holding the door open in invitation.

Another shrug, but Stiles steps over the threshold anyway. 

It’s been a while since he’s been to Peter’s condo. Not much has changed but it feels like he’s entering Peter’s place for the first time, like infinite time and space exist between this moment and the last time he was here investigating ley lines. 

Peter shuts the door and gives Stiles a hard look. 

“So what do I owe this pleasure?” He asks after a long moment, settling back down into the armchair he must have been in before Stiles arrived. There is a drink and an open book on the side table. 

Stiles slumps down onto the couch and pushes his hands through his hair.

“I just didn’t really have anywhere else to go,” Stiles says finally.

“The brat pack stuck in detention tonight?” Peter asks with a smirk. 

Stiles huffs out a reluctant laugh. “Who knows.”

“I figured you and McCall would be attached at the hip again. Or,” and Peter’s smile turns positivity Grinch-like, “Miss Martin?” Stiles flinches and the smile drops off Peter’s face. “Touchy subject?”

“You know, we’ve been through a lot of weird shit. I just didn’t think this would be the one to, I don’t know,” Stiles waves his hand in the air in a way that seems to indicate everything that’s been going on. 

Peter nods his head, like he understands what Stiles is trying to say. “I had a friend in college. We were really close for a while and then we got into some dumb argument; I don’t even really remember the details anymore. But after a while it became clear to all of our friends that I was in the right, but our friendship never recovered even if on the surface it seemed like an argument that we could have come back from,” Peter says, twirling around the ice in his drink. 

“Um? Is there a point to this random anecdote?”

Peter grins but there is no mirth there. “The way I figure it, they realized they were in the wrong, but they could never admit it. And since they were never going to admit that our friendship was never going to be repaired.

“McCall and his friends have always under valued you. And once you were gone, it became obvious how much they leaned on your help even if they wanted to pretend like you were the weak link as the human. Now that you’re back, that is something they have to reconcile with.”

Stiles blinks at Peter for a moment before he bursts out laughing. “That is one possible answer,” he allows. “Or they realized they were just fine without me and have no inclination to go back to how things were.”

“Well they’re idiots,” Peter declares, “but I didn’t need this piece of evidence to know that.” Peter takes a long sip of his drink and considers Stiles again before nodding to himself. “Since you don’t appear to be going anywhere else…”

Stiles’ eyebrows shoot up in question as Peter trails off and disappears into the kitchen. He returns with his drink refreshed and a glass of the same for Stiles, who arches an eyebrow in even more of a question. 

“Oh, like I care,” Peter scoffs. “I got up to way worse when I was your age.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s a story,” Stiles says with a grin and takes a sip of the drink. It’s warm and smokey and better than anything he’s snuck a high school party. 

“Or many,” Peter agrees. “But you’ve already met one of those stores.”

Stiles coughs on his drink. “Malia?”

Peter hums in agreement. 

“Hm, well. You knocking someone up at nineteen seems on brand.”

“Oh, actually I was a _bit_ younger for that…”

“Eighteen?”

“Wait? You’re nineteen?” Peter asks diverted.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I repeated first grade after my mom died,” he says as if this is old news. “Don’t change the subject.”

“Fifteen,” Peter says, like a challenge. 

And suddenly Stiles has a much more concrete idea of Peter’s age in his brain, which is something he never really gave much thought to. But now that it’s in there…

“Oh,” he says eventually for lack of anything else to say.

Peter makes a “huh” sound in agreement. 

“I suppose for all the times the universe has thrown us together, we don’t know all that much about each other,” Peter says slowly. 

Stiles eyes him. “All what times?”

“Well, there was that time that you helped me crack Scott’s password,” Peter begins, counting off on his fingers. 

“No. Nope. Gonna stop you there,” Stiles interrupts. “That wasn’t the universe. That was you kidnapping me.” 

Peter rolls his eyes. “I let you go, didn’t I? And if memory serves me, you helped kill me a little bit later, so I’d say we’re even for that.”

“Yeah, ok. Fair,” Stiles concedes. 

“You were the only one who would help with the Alpha pack,” Peter continues. “And, well, we both know what it’s like to be in that hellhole, Eichen.”

Stiles shudders. “Yeah,” he reluctantly agrees. 

“And of course, the train station,” Peter finishes. 

“Right, the train station,” Stiles repeats. 

The thing is that Stiles has been trying very hard not to think about his time in the Hunt. He’s been trying not to remember all of the people, still and silent like wax figures. How, of every person who had been taken by the Hunt, how Peter was there, and alive, and fucking vibrant. How Stiles was drawn to him, not just because he was a familiar face, but because there was something innately magnetic about Peter goddamn Hale that even the Hunt couldn’t suppress. 

“Do you ever wonder––” Stiles starts then cuts himself off and tries again. “I mean, I know time flowed different there…”

“Do I wonder how long we were really there?” Peter asks. “Every day.” 

Stiles lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“When I went through that portal, my biggest worry wasn’t that I was going to burn again––though maybe it should have been,” he continues softly, eyes strangely diverted from Stiles’. “But I worried that I would step back into a Beacon Hills that wasn’t mine. That years, decades, would have passed.”

Stiles’ eyes widen in sudden understanding. And he finds that he has also clenched his fists so hard that he’s leaving white nail marks in his palms. He forces himself to relax and take another sip of his drink.

“When I woke up from the coma, everyone had abandoned me,” Peter says and it feels like a confession. “I woke up and my whole family was gone, our home was gone, and I was left with nothing. When I rode through that portal, I was prepared for the worst.”

Stiles downs his drink. It burns his throat, but he thinks he needs the liquid courage. “When the nogistune was in me I would lose time, and after, when we split, I was afraid to sleep in case it happened again,” Stiles finds the words spilling out of him. “But after the train station, I now worry that instead of losing time, I will be stuck outside of it. Helplessly watching as everyone’s lives move on with me.”

“Christ,” Peter swears, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Aren’t we the pair.”

And Stiles has been trying very hard not to think of them as a matched set, but at this point who is he trying to kid? 

“It’s not like anyone else seems to want to join this pity party,” Stiles says. 

“You don’t know what my social calendar is like. Maybe you just got lucky when you showed up here tonight?”

Stiles has to force himself not to rise to that bait. “Has Derek even come by to see you?” Stiles asks instead. It comes out harsher than he intended. 

Peter doesn’t bother to answer and they laps into a silence that isn’t quite uncomfortable. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says eventually. “Maybe I should—“ he gestures towards the door. 

“Stay,” Peter says quietly. “It’s just. No one has been here. I haven’t seen anyone but you. I had been starting to worry that—“

“Hey, no. No,” Stiles cuts him off. He can’t bare to let Peter finish that thought. “Yeah, no. I’ll stay.”

“No, I wasn’t thinking. You have your dad to get home to,” Peter tries to backtrack. 

“Ten bucks says it will take days before anyone noticed I spent the night somewhere,” he says ruefully. 

Peter snorts. “Stiles.”

“Look, this has been a weird rollercoaster of oversharing tonight. Plus,” he waves the empty glass at Peter, “I probably shouldn’t drive, you know? I’ll just crash on the couch and then we can pretend this weird night never happened.”

Peter sighs. “Sure, Stiles. If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t know,” he whispers, but he’s pretty sure that Peter can hear him, even if he had moved into the kitchen to put their empty glasses in the sink. 

“Good night, Stiles,” Peter says, crossing the room, and heading back to his bedroom. 

The door closes before Stiles can answer, but it doesn’t really matter. Stiles stays.

  
  
A few days later, he comes back to Peter’s. And stays again, and again. And the time between stays gets shorter and shorter. 

It feels like the unexpected friendship they started to build back before the nogistune is returning. They have a lot in common when it comes to movies and their sense of humor, but they also fight about everything from music to books to the fact that no matter where Stiles leaves his shoes, they seem to always be in Peter’s path, werewolf reflexes be damned.

There are days, moments, in between where Stiles has good nights with his dad, or has lunch with Scott or Lydia. But mostly the only time he feels anything is the nights he crashes at Peter’s house. And he never really thinks about the change, it’s slow and it feels so natural, but eventually he finds himself going to Peter’s before he thinks of going anywhere else. 

The book Stiles is currently reading is at Peter’s and so is his favorite hoodie. And most of the time he eats at least one meal a day with Peter. And somewhere along the way, Stiles had stopped sleeping on Peter’s couch, and started sleeping in Peter’s bed. 

It feels normal, and so Stiles has never given it much thought. Which is probably why he’s so blindsided when Peter does broach the subject. 

“Stiles?” Peter asks one night in summer. “Do you live here?”

Stiles is sprawled across Peter’s couch, tapping furiously away on his phone. “Huh?” he asks, not looking up from his phone. 

Peter sits heavily down on the couch next to Stiles, and Stiles shifts and presses into his side. “Do you, Stiles Stilinski, live at my house?” 

“Obviously I don’t live here,” Stiles says. 

“When was the last time you stayed at your house with your dad?” Peter questions. 

Stiles screws up his eyes to think. “Um, graduation?” 

“Interesting. That was back in May,” Peter points out. “And all of your stuff is where?”

Stiles lowers his phone and gives Peter a look. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we live together.” 

“Live together,” Stiles says, air-quotes around the words. “That phrase has some pretty specific connotations, dude.”

“It does,” Peter agrees.

Stiles freezes and suddenly realizes that since Peter sat down next to him, Stiles has managed to position himself half on top of the other man. Peter’s hand is in his hair, and Stiles is idly rubbing his foot against Peter’s leg. 

He bolts up and points a finger at Peter. “Are we dating?” he asks like it’s an accusation. “Oh my god, do we live together?”

Peter chuckles. “Yes, that’s the conclusion I came to as well.”

“How? When?”

“Oh, I suppose some time around the time you starting spending all non-school hours here.”

“That was months ago!”

Peter gives him a look like he’s being purposefully dense. “Ok, well, how about when you started sleeping in my bed.”

“The couch was messing up my back and you don’t have a guest room!” Stiles shouts. 

“Why would I have a guest room?”

“For guests!”

“You’re not a guest, you live here!”

At some point they both moved and stand face to face, shouting at each other. And then Stiles is growling in frustration and Peter’s eyes widen fractionally, before Stiles slams into him. Peter’s arms immediately close around Stiles’ waist, and he’s pulling Stiles closer into their frantic kiss. Stiles’ hands move to Peter’s hair as he moans into the kiss. 

They stumble down onto the couch, Peter caging Stiles against the cushions with his body, looking down as they finally break their kiss. 

Stiles opens and closes his mouth a few times before finally managing, “Are you telling me that we’re dating and we could have been doing that the whole time?”

“Shut up, Stiles,” Peter growls, and kisses him again. 

Stiles melts into the kiss, and it shocks him how natural this feels. That after months of feeling unmoored, that kissing Peter feels like being home more than anything else has since the Hunt. He wants to chase the feeling, go wherever it takes him. He wants to mold himself to Peter, and never let anything pull them apart. 

But for now, he arches up and presses as much of his body as he can to the other man, and groans into Peter’s mouth as their erections press together. 

“You drive me crazy, you know that,” Peter says, kissing down Stiles’ throat. “For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been just out of my reach and then there you there.”

Stiles slides his hands up under Peter’s shirt, scraping his nails down Peter’s back. “I was out of reach? Are you kidding? You are so far out of my league, it’s like we were playing different games.”

“You should stop talking now,” Peter says and grinds down against Stiles. 

“Yeah, shutting up. I can do that,” Stiles babbles, and Peter laughs into their kiss. 

“You really can’t, can you?”

A wicked smile curls across Stiles’ mouth, “You might have to make me.”

Peter’s eyes flash blue and he reaches between them to pull Stiles’ pants open. Stiles gasps as his cock is freed, Peter’s warm hand wrapping around it and pumping a few times before he lets go to work on his own fly. 

“Someday soon I am going to take my time with you, and leave you speechless. Unable to find words to even beg,” Peter growls, wrapping his hand around both of their cocks together. 

“Fuck, Peter,” Stiles moans before latching his mouth onto Peter’s neck and bitting down on muscle. 

Peter shutters and speeds up his hand, rocking his hips slightly to add even more friction. They are both leaking, and Stiles knows that this is all going to end quickly. 

“That’s right, sweetheart,” Peter whispers. “Now that I’ve got you here, you’re mine.”

And really, that’s all it takes. Stiles spills into Peter’s fist, across his exposed stomach, and Peter rubs up against Stiles a few more times before he follows. 

They lay there for a moment, panting and breathing each other’s air before Stiles looks up into Peter’s eyes. 

“You scared the hell out of me when you decided to ride through that portal,” he confesses, quiet and serious, and really not randomly at all. “Nothing has ever scared me that much, and I didn’t know why.”

“I”m sorry,” Peter begins, but Stiles shakes his head. 

“Just never scare me like that again,” Stiles says. 

Peter reaches down and locks his fingers with Stiles. “I will do everything in my power to make sure that never happens again.”

Silence settles between them, and it should be uncomfortable for a lot of reasons, the least of it is that he has a huge werewolf draped across his body. But instead of feeling weird or strained, it feels welcome and comfortable. 

Eventually Peter pushes back and stretches, smiling down at Stiles. 

“We should get cleaned up and take this to our room,” he says with a smirk. 

“Our room, is it?” 

Peter rolls his eyes. “Come on, you can check how much of the closet space you are taking up while you steal another of my shirts to sleep in.”

And Stiles wants to argue the point, wants to say that they can’t suddenly be this far into a relationship without either of them noticing, but he can’t. And, he realizes as he sits up and take Peter’s offered hand, that he really doesn’t want to fight the inevitability of whatever this is. 

And when Stiles stops to think about it as he’s brushing his teeth, it’s his toothbrush in the bathroom, it’s his pillow mixed in with Peter’s on the bed, his books scattered across the various tables around the house. 

By the time he slides into bed with Peter, he can’t control himself any longer, and laughter bursts out of him; the uncontrollable kind––Church Laugh, his mom used to call it. Peter doesn’t ask, just rolls his eyes and pulls Stiles against his chest. 

“I can’t believe we live together,” Stiles says eventually, hiccuping as the last of the laughter fades away. 

“Idiot,” Peter says fondly. 

“We should probably talk about––”

“Tomorrow,” Peter interrupts. “We’ll talk about all of this tomorrow. Now go to sleep, sweetheart.”

Stiles smiles into the darkness. He’s never felt less alone. 

  
  



End file.
